Rapid Mopping Up In Tunisian Tip

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 109, 10 May 1943, Page 3

Rapid Mopping Up In Tunisian Tip

AXIS FORCES ROUTED Allies Reported To Have Taken 60,000 Prisoners (New Zealand Press Association.—Copyright.—Rec. noon.) LONDON, May 9. The Allied forces have crushed enemy resistance in North Tunisia except for isolated pockets which will be mopped up at leisure. Von Arnim's battered remnants are hastening towards Cape Bon, taking terrible punishment from the air, while Allied columns are closing in the base of Cape Bon from all directions with all speed, each column determined to outdo the other in fulfilling General Alexander's order to "kick the Axis forces into the sea." "If there ever was a beaten army this is it," says Columbia Broadcasting System correspondent at Algiers. "They simply don't know what to think. They are dazed and disorganised. They run away from perfectly good long-prepared positions. They for once have forgotten to lay mines. They leave their clothes, food and guns. They just break." The British United Press correspondent at Allied headquarters says the British First Army, the British Eighth Army and the French Nineteenth Corps are all converging on the base of Cape Bon Peninsula, and are sweeping the Germans rapidly into a pocket. The full weight of Allied armoured units has been thrown in against the disorganised Germans. The British Sixth Armoured Division is driving a spearhead south-east along the coast after overcoming severe opposition at Hammam-Lif, and is nearing Souliman. Everywhere except along the coast road German resistance is confused. A spokesman at Allied headquarters summed up the position with the comment: "The enemy is in a hell of a mess." Sea on Three Sides and Pressing Infantry Behind Enemy forces which have reached Cape Bon are finding no sanctuary, says Reuters correspondent. They have the sea under Allied control on three sides, with powerful armoured infantry forces pressing them ever harder from the base of the peninsula and bombs and bullets raining down from Allied' planes which have almost undisputed control of the skies.

Algiers radio stated that American forces have completed mopping up in the Bizerta area, where organised resistance has ceased'. They captured three German division commanders with their staffs. Five thousand Germans surrendered unconditionally in the Bizerta area the morning after their vain attempts to evacuate. The Allies to-day occupied Teburba and Carthage. Heavy fighting continues in the vicinity of Hammam-Lif. An Algiers communique states that French troops have occupied Zaghouan. An earlier report stated that Hamman-Lif, ten miles southeast of Tunis, had been occupied and our troops had reached the northern end of the Cape Bon Peninsula. The Allied forces had also captured Hammamet, which is on the coast at the base of the peninsula. The French with the First Army, in a successful local attack, captured Pont du Fahs, also important high ground east of Pont du Fahs. There has been considerable local activity on the Eighth Army front. We captured some prisoners. Trapped Axis Troops Bury Equipment and Surrender Reuters Algiers correspondent says many Axis troops which were trapped following the capture by the Allied forces of La Goulette, Carthage, Teburba and Djebeida are now incapable of further resistance. They are burying their equipment and surrendering without a fight. Strong Allied tank and infantry forces are attacking all along the roughly-improvised line which the remnants of Italians and German armies are attempting to hold in a rearguard stand on a semi-circle from Hammamet to the Gulf of Tunis. The respite which the shattered Axis units may gain will be brief because the mouth of the peninsula is being sealed up under the converging drives of the Allied columns. One report from Algiers states that the Allies have already taken prisoner 60,000 Axis troops. The Exchange Telegraph correspondent at Tunis reports that the British First Army alone had by Saturday night captured 25,000 Italians and Germans. The majority of the prisoners stated that the speed of our push surprised them. The Algiers radio estimates that 120,000 Germans and Italians are encircled in Tunisia. Pilots report that about 50,000 Axis troops are retreating down the highways of Cape Bon, on which fragmentation bombs are being rained. They say one of the worst slaughters of the war is certain unless the enemy surrenders immediately. The Allied' Commander-in-Chief in North' Africa, General Ejsenhower, stated to-day that organised Axis resistance, except for a few isolated pockets, appeared to have ended in Tunisia.